Project Import Fails With Has No User Associated With The Watch Error
Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian apps on the Data Center platform.
Note that this KB was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center KBs for non-Data-Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Symptoms
When trying to import a project, the import fails with the following error in the UI
Watcher associated with issue id '337461' has no user associated with the watch
Cause
This error occurs because there is watcher or voter with NULL value.
During the project import, JIRA will check for the watcher and voter association in all projects to prevent importing NULL userassociations to the destination instance.
Resolution
Warning: Backup your database before proceeding.
Before running any SQL in this article, create a full backup of your Jira database. This is a database-level operation with no undo other than restoring from backup. Only proceed if you're comfortable running SQL directly against the Jira database, and test on a staging or cloned environment first, wherever possible.
Run the following SQL query to identify all the NULL watcher and/or voter in the instance
SELECT * FROM userassociation WHERE source_name = '';Delete every the NULL user returns from the query above.
DELETE FROM userassociation WHERE source_name = '';⚠️ Please make sure that you have the latest XML backup before proceeding with the DELETE statement above.
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